Hugo (2011)

5/5

Martin Scorsese's Hugo is pure magic. Its conception and creation were very clearly labors of love by exquisitely talented craftsmen. The story begins with a boy, Hugo (Butterfield), who lives in a train station. He is caught stealing gears from a toy shop owned by Papa Georges (Kingsley), who forces him to empty his pockets. Among the stolen goods is a notebook that was given to him by his late father (Law). The drawings in the notebook seem to bring back unwanted memories for Papa Georges, who threatens to burn it and report the boy to the station master (Baron Cohen). He follows Papa Georges home, pleading with his eyes, and waits outside the house until he sees Papa George's niece (Moretz). Hugo enlists her help and they soon find themselves on an adventure that grows beyond their wildest imagination.

I know the book on which this movie is based has a lot of illustrations, so I can't give Scorsese all the credit for its visual power, but boy does this movie pack a punch. The story is told in images, with snippets of silent film interspersed with inspiration from Hitchcock's Rear Window. And it is an emotional roller coaster, juxtaposing the kind of pure sorrow and exhilaration as only a child could experience. It combines complex characters with expressive acting to tremendous effect. The energetic pacing complements the classic storytelling structure, thanks in no small part to Thelma Schoonmaker's efficient editing. Even the 3D technology was well-done. I know that because it did not give me a headache. (Whether a 3D movie gives me a headache is really my only criterion now for how good the 3D is--Avatar is the only other movie to have good 3D by these standards.)

Not all is perfect in this movie, but its flaws are easily overlooked. I have no doubt that the special effects used in this movie will one day look as dated and comical as King Kong or The Birds. But for now, they're passable. Also, the side characters are somewhat poorly developed. There are hints at uniqueness and charm--and the atmosphere itself is already filled to the brim with wonder and awe--but the side characters never get fully fleshed-out. Jean-Pierre Jeunet would have perhaps been a better choice to breathe life into the subplots and side stories, as he did in Amélie and Delicatessen.

This film succeeds on all fronts: as entertainment, as art, and as heartfelt nostalgia for cinema. Go into the movie knowing nothing and you will be surprised and delighted. Go into the movie a second time and I am certain you will still be profoundly shaken. That is the mark of good storytelling, and that is the mark of phenomenal filmmaking.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0970179/

Transsiberian (2008)

3/5

Transsiberian attempts to be a finely-honed thriller but instead frequently crosses the line between tense and boring and often mixes up scary "what if" paranoias with absolutely ludicrous impossibilities. The movie follows an American couple, Roy (Harrelson) and Jessie (Mortimer), leaving China on an 8-day train ride to Moscow. On the train they meet another couple, Abby (Mara) and Carlos (Noriega), and quickly place way too much trust in them. When Roy is nowhere to be found when the train takes off, Jessie gets worried. She gets off at the next stop and waits there with Abby and Carlos, but they don't hear from Roy all night. Also, randomly, Ben Kingsley plays a narcotics officer that eventually gets involved.

The plot itself is a mixed bag. As I said earlier, the creators must have found it very difficult to strike the balance they desired. Oftentimes the movie drags, oftentimes it is preposterous. The other half of the time they spin a wonderfully taut psychological thriller. On paper it must have seemed well-crafted, giving the audience subtle clues and background stories to foreshadow ominous events before an exciting and climactic finale. But the whole thing seems very written and pre-planned. Unfortunately, the more you get into the movie, the less you believe it and the less you care about the characters. None of the technical features really stood out to me while watching it either. Still, this was a relatively enjoyable popcorn flick with a few too many contrivances and plot holes for me to really love it.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800241/

Shutter Island (2010)

5/5

Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island is everything I didn't know I wanted. It is beautiful, uplifting, disturbing, sad, and compelling. It may not be what you expect the movie to be, but it is everything that a movie should be. The plot follows US Marshalls Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Ruffalo) on Shutter Island, home to a prison for the criminally insane. A patient has gone missing, having apparently evaporated through the walls of her cell, and they are tasked with finding her. They are welcomed by unhelpful security guards and menacing psychiatrists (Kingsley, von Sydow). They dig deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the island--the fortified Ward C for the most dangerous patients, the solitary lighthouse surrounded by an electric fence--but the truth just barely eludes them at every turn.

The movie is not typical in any sense of the word. It bears some resemblance to noir in thematics and cinematics, but it uses blinding whites instead of pitch blacks. It shows us his traumatic past in fragmented visuals instead of linear storytelling. Its labyrinthine mysteries take on new dimensions in the physical, mental, and spiritual realms. The visuals are reminiscent of Kubrick's The Shining, but the traditional Hollywood horror aspect is muted to allow the unnerving psychological dysfunction to haunt us. It tugs us between pity and awe, hatred and sympathy, for the ill patients and their past acts. It asks us how we would treat them. And then it flips everything on its head and asks us all those same questions again.

This is a movie where the acting complicates the written characters in the best possible way. This is not a simple movie, and none of the personas within it are simple either. They are alive and breathing. And they hide secrets from the camera that we are never meant to know. The editing is equally complex: it takes flashbacks to a new level and it does so with simplicity and expert craft instead of gimmicks and CGI. This film shows a director, an actor, and an editor all at the top of their form. And I hope they just keep getting better and better.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130884/

Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

3/5

Lars and the Real Girl is a pretty typical indie drama romance comedy smorgasbord of heartache, love, and laughs. It follows an underdeveloped man-child weirdo lead (Ryan Gosling) and his sex doll Bianca, which is his outlet and the movie's "unique" quality that indie fanboys (and fangirls) will surely love. The real love interest is an equally weird uggo who is too perky and aggressive in the dating arena for how little success she must have had given her uggo-ness. But like a lot of indie films, this one has a heartwarming story, laugh-out-loud moments, and melodramatic tearjerker scenes. If you can stand the contemporary awkward American "independent" cinema, then you'll probably like this movie.

Now, to rant: I don't know who the character is supposed to be. It's a fantastic situation that has zero conceivable relevance to most viewers' everyday lives. He shifted from absurdly bizarre in the beginning to perfectly normal in the end. Everything was tied up way too neatly for me. And it seemed like the entire forward momentum of the story was based around the protagonist, a character whose motivations and mindset I didn't understand at all. Any change in the story was a direct result of a change in Gosling's character--the supporting cast was powerless to influence the plot progression. The only reason it kept going was because it was a 2 hour movie, not because it necessarily would have. Still, all my nitpicky complaints didn't hurt my enjoyment of the movie. So if this seems interesting to you, check it out. You indie fanboy. (Or fangirl).

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805564/